SHARON RANDALL

Stories, music and love don't cost a cent

I grew up in a family of sinners, singers and storytellers. We didn't have much materially, but we had each other and a whole lot of fun.

By the time I was old enough to know right from wrong -- 4 or 5 years old -- I had learned three fundamental facts of life:

  1. Money might be scarce, but it doesn't really matter as long as you have enough. In the poorest of times, we had enough.

  2. Sin is bad. It's best to avoid it if you can. The good news is it can be forgiven. If you think you're sinless, think again. A saint is a sinner saved by grace.

  3. Singing and storytelling are good for the soul and absolutely free. Even if you can't carry a tune or turn a phrase, you can still sing a song or tell a story. Just take whatever is in your heart or soul, put it into words or music, set it free and watch it catch fire in someone's eyes.

My family did that for me. My grandparents and parents, my aunts and uncles, my sister and brothers and dozens of cousins.

Whatever we lacked in wealth, we more than made up for with stories, music and love.

My mother and her eight sisters sang with the voices of angels. My granddad, a Baptist preacher, took great pride in having them sing at church.

My grandmother, who seldom went to church, preferred to hear them sing around the table after supper or in summer on the porch. They fought, on occasion, like rabid dogs, but when they sang, their voices found a fine and perfect harmony that I still hear in most of my childhood memories.

My granddad, the preacher, told me stories from the Bible: Cain and Abel, Moses and Pharaoh, David and Bathsheba, Jesus and Judas -- death and betrayal and salvation.

My mother's mother told me stories from her life: hanging on the mane of a runaway horse, hearing wolves howl outside the cabin door, watching one man kill another in a knife fight, or seeing a vision of a tiny, rolling casket and realizing her youngest child was dead.

My dad's mother read to me all sorts of stories from Uncle Remus stories and Gone With the Wind and Reader's Digest Condensed Books.

My dad put me to bed at night with stories about hunting and fishing, and sailing off to war through the Panama Canal.

I learned to read before I started school, and made up stories of my own to entertain my two younger brothers. They weren't great stories, but they helped my brothers go to sleep. If a story didn't work, I'd sing them a song. That usually knocked them out cold.

Singing, reading and telling stories were the best things I did for my three children. Feeding them didn't hurt. Or doing their laundry. Or laughing at their jokes.

But I'm proudest of the times we spent singing, reading and telling each other stories.

I do those things now with my grandchildren. They seem to like it, and need it, just as I do.

We all need words, stories and music to grow, to learn and to heal, at every age, every stage of our lives.

My sister had surgery recently to replace a bad knee. I can't be with her, so I phone every day to check on her progress.

It's been slow, painful and discouraging. There's nothing I can do to change that.

So I do what I can: I tell her stories about my kids, my grandchildren and my husband. I tell her stories about the fog on the bay or the hummingbird at my window or the man walking a bulldog that looks exactly like him.

I sing for her, too. No, not on the phone. When I'm in the shower. In the car. In my mind. Or my dreams. I lift her up with stories, songs and prayers for comfort and healing.

It's the least I can do for her. It's the best I can do for me.

Sharon Randall can be reached at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson, Nev. 89077, or on her website:

sharonrandall.com

Family on 08/23/2017

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